Unfortunately, when you get past the surface level charm, what awaits is a rickety foundation of confusing ideas and game mechanics that go out of their way to put the 'grind' into 'oh my god this game is a bloody grind.' Take the central concept. You don't control one hero in Krater, but three at once, recruited from various towns. Initially, that's refreshing. They come in multiple roles, from the Bruiser tank to more DPS focused Slayer, and while there are some control issues to deal with (no pause key for instance, and suicidal AI that doesn't understand simple concepts like 'stay in the bubble that's healing you and buffing your defense, you complete arse') the action is a pleasing enough hack-and-slash journey through a pretty overworld, and dark caves of loot and monsters.

While in combat, you can choose to either use all three party members at once, or use them individually. This can come in handy when you want to keep your healer or sniper in the back while the tank keeps the enemies at bay. This is where the strategy comes into play. For the first few quests you can go full on with your entire party, but when you start running into the tougher enemies, you will want to move your party to better locations while in combat.

Krater could be a great game, but the lack of resources makes its initial version hard to love. Combat is a mixed experience and there are still quite lot of things that need to be polished, like the squad mechanics, and plenty of things that are missing, like a tactical pause.

Many updates are scheduled to appear but, at least for now, you might want to steer clear of the dungeon crawler.